It's an American icon: Jimmy Stewart, freshly appointed Senator, ready to take on the machine, in Mr Smith Goes to Washington.

In the 1937 classic an idealistic Jefferson Smith... barnstorms Washington, hoping to make a difference. But the young senator is soon confronted by the awesome might of Washington's political machine... they unleash the political attack dogs, hoping to destroy the reputation of the young reformer. But our Mr. Smith fights back, defeats the political bigwigs, and watches his leaders confess their errors. He even wins the girl.

Throw out that image, "Congressman Joe" Scarborough tells us. It's not how Washington really works. In Rome Wasn't Burnt in a Day, the Reagan Republican, one-time Congressional firebrand, now political commentator on MSNBC's Scarborough Country, tells us how it does work, and how badly the mechanism is broken: 7.5 trillion dollars of debt's worth.

...back when I was in Congress, Michigan representative Nick Smith was kind enough to draw diagrams in crayon to help me understand just how hard it would be to pay off America's multi-trillion dollar debt... if I had earned $1 million every single day from the moment Jesus Christ was born until the year 2000, I would still not have earned enough money...

1994. Freshman congressmen meet for the first time on the Hill with their leader, Newt Gingrich. Among 80-some new faces in the House is Joe Scarborough, who parlayed his constituents' dismay with new President Clinton's proposal to "socialize one-seventh of the economy" into a seat long held by a Florida Democrat. These were the contractors with America, determined to keep their historic agreement and siderail Democrat and "Old Republican" spending plans alike.

Along the way, Scarborough had his nose rubbed, again and again, in the ingrained dishonesty of deal-making in the Congress. As he shares his experience, he doesn't spare Republicans or Democrats, Congressmen or Senators—or even Presidents and their advisors. And while a book of less than 200 pages can hardly cover every seamy detail of a seven-year political career, there is enough substance to make this a very disturbing book to read.

...no money can be spent by the federal government unless the House first approves it. As such, all of the finger-pointing toward the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue is a bit disingenuous.
   It is also intellectually dishonest for the White House to blame their Republican fraternity brothers and sorority sisters in Congress for the current fiscal crisis... [because] no budget-busting spending bill can become law without first being signed by the President.

Scarborough details how President Clinton and Dick Morris broke the Republican Revolution of 1994, and why the election of George W. Bush in 2000 did not change the dynamic in Washington for the better. He explains the power of the "Fat White Pink Boys," the staffers and aides and bureaucrats who really run Washington.